Rebate or Masturbate?

Nowadays we're all being offered rebates as a bonus for buying. BEWARE! It's one more sucker trap to separate consumers from their money. For example, Staples sells a lot of products with bold print trumpeting prices that are lower than their competition. The Staples small print advises a larger price, with the explanation you'll receive a rebate after the purchase.

It all sounds too good to be true. Well, it's true. Sort of. To claim your rebate you have to mail in the receipt and wait weeks. When the "check" arrives it looks like a postcard with perforations and you're about to toss this ad in the refuse. Another look and you realize you were going to throw away the rebate. Many customers do. I almost did, but don't anymore. Why? Because I don't like and I don't want rebates from Staples or any other company.

Quite frankly it is much easier and more enjoyable to masturbate than fill out a form for a rebate. In the former instance, one hazard is a paper cut, especially while going over a PLAYBOY Magazine. A rebate form has serial numbers to fill in. One number I was requested to file, to obtain a $4 rebate from Staples, had 27 digits on the faded receipt. I tried to obtain the numbers with a magnifying glass; no luck. No rebate. No more of my business with Staples!

One more complaint about Staples and all the stores that sell print cartridges for computers. THEY ARE ALL TOO EXPENSIVE. I've tried to fill a used one with ink, to save money on purchasing a new one for my iMac. The result was spilled ink, a stained sweat shirt that cost $5 to have cleaned and I am angry of course.

Finally, computers are wonderful when they work. CHARTER brags how much faster they are. Not so. Mine is slower with CHARTER. Also, when I called Charter tech to find out why my iMac froze and I couldn't get on the Internet, "Mary" in the Philippines, led me through an hour of tutoring that involved unplugging all my connections, waiting for five minutes, and then plugging everything back in. I followed "Mary's" instructions to no avail. And said goodbye to "Mary." BTW my reason for the quotes is that "Mary" is about as American as the Philippine golf pro Amigo Rodrigues.

After thanking "Mary" for her assistance, I looked at my modem that wasn't blinking anymore and I slapped it. VOILA! All my computer lights went on and I was back in action. That's what I've done for years, i.e. when the lawn mower's motor stopped and wouldn't start, I kicked it. The motor began to perk again and lasted for another two years before quitting permanently. Ditto for the kitchen blender. It stopped whirring. I slammed it on the counter and it started up again.

The message here is to use your anger and level it at the offending appliance. Corporal punishment is in once again!

My Encounter With George Plimpton, Editor of The Paris Review

During the early 70's I was appearing on talk shows in Toronto, mainly with Pierre Berton, produced by Elsa Franklin. She had some sort of disagreement with George Plimpton and hired me to prank him with a grand hoax, nothing criminal or physical. And I was to secretly record it on audio tape for verification.

I knew a lot about Plimpton and his amusing escapades....playing quarterback for the Detroit Lions, performing on the triangle with the New York Philharmonic and boxing with Archie Moore, among many others. At the time, his magazine, The Paris Review, was in serious financial difficulty and he was seeking funds to keep it alive.

My plan was to call him, posing as a rich fan and offering to help with a nice sum of money. I used the name Harrison T. Rogers, he answered my phone call and I was invited to have lunch with him at his apartment, on the east side of New York City, the next day. So far so good. I had a tape recorder hidden in my briefcase and an hour for recording this session.

I arrived promptly at 1 pm and George was waiting, with his wife Freddy. They were both quite excited over the sudden, unexpected opportunity to raise some funding from a complete stranger. They never challenged me, we engaged in small talk, lunch was a plate of tasty sandwiches and iced tea. My banter consisted of talking about how I had sold liquid fertilizer (yes, I did that for a few weeks years earlier), made a fortune and sold my formula to Monsanto.

After lunch, we got down to business. George wanted to know how much I could invest and what I wanted in return. I offered to invest $25,000 in exchange for a 25% interest in his magazine forever. He winced at the last condition. George counter offered that percentage for $100,000. I hesitated and said I would have to think it over. Meantime, my watch indicated I only had five minutes before the tape recorder would click and stop recording.

It was time to say goodbye, quickly, which I did. They ushered me to the front door with a hand shake and Freddy planted a kiss on my cheek. I thanked them for their hospitality and took off, with a sigh of relief. As they shut the front door, a loud click came from my briefcase. Wow. close call. Also, I had claimed to have the $25,000 in cash in my brief case. That was foolish. What if George decided to accept my initial offer?

When I reached home, I played the tape for my wife, Jeanne, and we both found ourselves laughing throughout. It was all bold face comedy!  Here I am improvising about liquid fertilizer while George is bragging about The Paris Review and its plans for furure publications with my funds.

After making a copy of the tape cassette, I sent the original to Elsa Franklin in Toronto. She, Pierre Berton and their staff at the CBC station in Toronto found it hilarious. To my knowledge, George Plimpton never learned of the hoax. That's just as well. I felt a bit sheepish about pulling the wool over this sheep's eyes. He was a very talented guy and deserves to rest in peace.

I did write him a note with thanks for lunch and a decision not to invest after all.

To Be Or Not To Be TV

For some reason or other I have been on the low end of the totem pole when pitching a new TV concept to the network moguls. In the early 50's I made a pilot for an hour of music with a small orchestra, jazz pianist Dwike Mitchell and pop singers. It was shown on WPIX-TV in New York City and received excellent reviews in BILLBOARD and VARIETY trade magazines.

But the MAD MEN who controlled content for TV turned thumbs down. They felt that high class music should stay in the concert hall, not on television. Manny Sacks, a programming executive wih NBC called me to have lunch in six months and discuss my  show, "Your Musical Workshop." His secretary kept calling a month before for a later date; this happened seven times. Manny finally died.

Then I thought about entertainment on airlines, showing a movie and listening to old radio shows by Jack Benny, Red Skelton and Milton Berle. Charlie Beard, the CEO of Braniff Airlines, was willing to do a test run between New York City and Dallas. A 16 mm projector would show the Moss Hart World War II feature celebrating our Air Force, "Winged Victory," that was directed by George Cukor. An Ampex machine played back the old comedy radio shows.

Again, great reviews by the trade papers and passengers on the test Braniff run were delighted. But the airlines were dubious. As the marketing director for American Airlines told me in his office, "Travelers want to sleep, read magazines or look out the window. They don't want to be interrupted by music, jokes or read magazines." He then took me by the arm and aggressively escorted me to the elevator.

David Flexer called me with an invitation to have lunch at the "21" Restaurant. He was a young and enterprising chap interested in setting up a company called IN FLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT that would sell movies and radio shows to the airlines. Did I want to join him in business? I was not interested in having a partner in a project that I tried to sell and couldn't. So I turned him down. He forgot to put money in his wallet. I paid the check. The rest is history with IFE.

In the late 50's I made a half-hour pilot called "The Unstable Roundtable" with Buck Henry and a few other eggheads discussing "the role of the dog in society." It was an amusing show but there were no takers. Again, agency "suits" claimed it was too static, needed movement, maybe with ballet dancers or people dancing in Hoola Hoops. I abandoned the idea.

Here is one last failure. It was a half-hour program resembling a Playboy VIP Club, with a jazz band, attractive ladies and some clever banter by an M.C. This pilot would be staged on television, recorded on 35 mm film and then released to theaters, thus providing a cheap way to produce movie shorts.

It almost worked. The World Theater in Columbus, Ohio agreed to show the short subject for a week, because one of the models, Linda Lombard, was a native of Columbus and had graced the full cover of LOOK Magazine. The theater was on the edge of the campus of The Ohio State University, my alma mater where I was a BMOC. But that didn't matter much. Business was good and after all expenses were paid, including advertising, I received a check for $11.00. Say goodbye, and I did.

Finally, I'm not going to recite my crazy experience to produce an off-Broadway revue called, "Safari." You can read all about that roller coaster ride in my book, "How To Thrive On Rejection," and copies are available on the website www.abelraisescain.com

Thanks for ordering and reading.

There Ain't No More Free Lunches

I remember many earlier days when our entire family (three kids and two adults) went to the movies for a dollar. It was the Mu-Wa-Tu Theater in Coshocton, Ohio. The population of 12,000 never changed from year to year because, as Sheriff Holmes said, "Every time a baby is born someone leave town."  And a full meal for our family at the Trinway Diner in Conesville was only $1.50! As Archie Bunker often sang with Edith, "Those Were The Days," with thanks to songwriters Lee Adams and Charles Strouse.

Nowadays, especially in cyberspace, everything and I mean everything is DISINGENUOUS! For example, I just tuned in to a chap who claimed to have lost 81 pounds in a year with his "secret." He then rambled on for ten minutes, reciting the magic of his "mound" that he lost, until I fell asleep. When I woke up a few minutes later, he was still ranting and raving about what he intended to tell me. Well, I said to myself, "fuck you asshole." I lost a pound just listening to this shithead. My solution was to press the delete button. Goodbye snake oil sales pitch.

And so it goes, folks. There ain't no more free lunches. Another example. My wife and I received a dozen invitations to attend free dinners hosted by retirement villages and investment planners. We had some excellent meals and sat through an hour of pitch talk. Then we went home to some late night talk on TV from comedians and soon fell asleep. That was during 2006 and 2012.

Those invitations ended because we never fell prey to the pitches. We did appreciate the free dinners, saving a few hundred dollars in total. Now, we're satisfied to eat at home, having paid for the food and enjoying our mutual company. Mostly small talk and lots of laughs over past achievements. If you want to peek into our dinner talks, view our daughter's and son-in-law's award-winning documentary, "Abel Raises Cain." It's a magnificent embarrassment. You can order a DVD from www.abelraisescain.com

So, beware if the message on your computer or television is too good to be true. The pitchman or pitchwoman has what it takes to take what you've got: YOUR MONEY! Meantime, try to have a nice day.